Nikesh Arora, an Indian-origin CEO in the US, is earning more than Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. A report by Wall Street Journal has revealed the top 10 highest earning CEOs in the US. It stated that Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company, is the second highest paid CEO after Broadcom’s CEO Hock Tan. Arora’s compensation is $151.43 million while Zuckerberg has $24.40 million and Pichai has $8.8 million.
Who is Nikesh Arora?
Arora has done his schooling from Air Force Public School in Delhi before pursuing B Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT-BHU. He later did his MBA from Northeaster University, Boston and MS in Finance from Boston College.
Before becoming a CEO at Palo Alto Networks, Arora has worked with renowned companies like Google as Chief Business Officer and Softbank as President, Chief Operating Officer. Nikesh Arora is heading Palo Alto for six years now.
This is not the first time Arora came in headlines for his high compensation. He was also the highest paid executive when he was working at Google in 2012 with a $51 million package. By the end of his time with Google, he had already collected stock awards worth $200 million.
Explaining why these stocks awards were justified, Palo Alto stated, “Because of this significant vested ownership and the amount that Mr. Arora was projected to vest in over the next several years, the Board determined that a meaningful equity award would be necessary to ensure that such award retains and engages Mr. Arora.”
As per a report by Bloomberg, Arora’s compensation was $135 million when he was working with Softbank. People at the company saw him as the successor to legendary investor Masayoshi Son.
Also Read:
Actors union backs Scarlett Johansson after claim of voice misuse by Sam Altman’s OpenAI